In Pursuit of Excellence
Dartmouth College Recognizes with Deep Appreciation the Extraordinary Achievements of
Victor S. Rich ’61 Tu’62 P’92
2017 Secretary of the Year – 26 Years Out and Older
“If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.”
—Robert South
Victor, as a devoted son of Dartmouth, you have done so much for your class and given so much to the College. Though you stand only 5’6” tall, your measure as a man knows no ceiling and your stature has done nothing but grow across six decades – and counting – of selfless service. Along the way you have served on numerous Dartmouth Alumni Council, admissions, and club committees (you began your fifth multi-year term on the Alumni Council last fall), held every class officer role at least once, and proven a powerful voice on what we know today as the Class Officers Association Executive Board.
As your class’s secretary since 2001, vice president of the Class Secretaries Association from 2013–2015, and president of that association from 2015–2017, you have proven yourself to be an effective leader, an intelligent innovator, and a true man of the people. You work tirelessly not just to keep your classmates connected with each other, with the College, and with current students, but also to bridge the gap between different generations of class leaders by sharing best practices. Wonderful examples of these admirable attributes and altruistic ambitions abound, such as your work to articulate and memorialize the expanded responsibilities of an outstanding class secretary, your service as one of the primary architects of the Class of ’61’s unique Robert Frost class project for your 55th reunion in 2016, and your completion of your class’s first formal comprehensive communications plan this past summer. That plan – the purpose of which you described in one of your columns as being “to strengthen the ties of brotherhood that have and will continue to bind us together as a unified and cohesive class of excellence” – was distributed to all classmates. As of the writing of this citation, it had been requested by seven different classes eager to benefit from the breadth of your (and, as you would be the first to point out, your leadership team’s) volunteer experience.
Your deep and abiding love for your “unusually small class” and your spirit of inclusiveness flows through each and every one of your thoughtful Class Notes columns, the content of which you draw not only from conversations and correspondence with classmates, but also by routinely scouring traditional and digital College media outlets for nuggets of interesting news relevant to your class. Whether you are telling the stories of your classmates’ lives through reportage and personal quotes, informing them of class events, activities, and executive committee initiatives, or honoring those who have passed, you write with pride, passion, humor, and above all humility. In the January/February 2016 issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, for example, you celebrated the Class of ’61’s richly deserved, first-ever Class of the Year selection, an award you said “could not have been won without the broad continuing efforts of and participation by many classmates over an extended period of time.” But, as the above pun suggests, we—like the majority of your classmates—know that it is you, Dartmouth’s version of “The Great Communicator,” who has been most instrumental in guiding your great class to “the top of the mountain” and beyond.
We’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg in praise of your exemplary work as secretary, Class Secretaries Association president, and more, but alas we’ve blown well past your class’s cursed 350-word limit. So we’ll simply end by saying thank you, Victor S. Rich, and congratulations on your selection as the 2017 Secretary of the Year for classes more than 25 years out!